


looking for solid ground

by prettyweeper



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Memory Loss, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-08 01:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16419668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyweeper/pseuds/prettyweeper
Summary: When a failed memory charm sends Draco Malfoy into a coma, Harry has to dive into his memories in order to bring him back. It would be so much easier if Malfoy were Sleeping Beauty and all it took was a kiss.





	1. if the fires don't burn it down

**Author's Note:**

> title of the story and chapter titles come from the song "Stone" by Jaymes Young. all errors are my own.

Blinking blearily at his breakfast, Harry wonders how many hours of sleep he’d gotten last night. He would give anything for a Hangover Potion, or a Wideye at the least. Instead, all he has is a cup of bitter coffee. He downs the last dregs of it, grimacing. He looks for more, but Seamus has seized the pot of it and is guarding it with all the ferocity of a very angry, hungover dragon.

“Not the best decision we’ve ever made, mate,” Ron mutters, looking as tired as Harry feels.

Hermione, for her own part, only looks at them disapprovingly and goes back to the book she’s reading.

The ceiling of the Great Hall is sunny and bright. Wisps of clouds puff merrily here and there, streaks of cotton on an otherwise flawless sky. The tables are strewn with every kind of breakfast food imaginable: porridge, stacks of pancakes, French toast, mounds of fruit, and piles of eggs a head high. The sight of all of it turns Harry’s stomach. He briefly considers trying to wrest the coffee from Seamus’s clutches, but decides it’s not worth the effort. He thunks his head down on his arms with a groan.

“I won’t say anything,” Hermione says primly. Even the sound of her turning a page is almost too loud for Harry’s throbbing head.

“Don’t worry,” Ron says, “we feel bad enough on our own.”

There’s a loud shambling behind Harry, and a weight falls heavily onto the bench next to him.

“Oh, Neville, not you too.”

“Me too,” Neville agrees. Looking up from the darkness of his arms, Harry sees that Neville’s in the same shape as the rest of them; his skin has a pale, sickly pallor and the skin under his eyes is dark. “Is there any coffee left?”

“No,” Seamus snaps, “there isn’t any.” He pulls the pot closer to his chest, wrapping his arms around it. He hasn’t even drunk any that Harry’s seen, just hoarded it.

Neville blinks tiredly and gives up, staring down into a bowl like he’s never seen porridge before, or the answer to his profound tiredness lies somewhere in its murky depths.

Dean, the only one of them who didn’t drink, wolfs down bacon with wild abandon. For a second, Harry is brightly, strikingly jealous. At least he can content himself with the knowledge that Dean’s running on the same amount of sleep that they are.

“When did we go to sleep?” he asks. His eyes flit to the High Table, mostly empty this early. In the Headmaster’s seat, McGonagall leans over a pile of papers, correcting them. Her eyeglasses have slipped down the edge of her nose. There is a great deal more grey in her hair this year than last, Harry thinks.

Dean hums around a mouthful of food. “Well, when Neville challenged me to that rematch, it was around three, wasn’t it?” He elbows Seamus.

“Don’t touch me.”

Dean turns back towards Harry. “Yeah, it was three, and the game lasted…” He trails off to draw calculations in the air with his fork. “So, we went to sleep at four?”

About three and a half hours of sleep then. Harry’s dealt with worse.

“At least you got your Charms essays done first,” Hermione says. She pauses, looks up. “You guys did finish your essays, right?”

Ron starts. “We had a Charms essay?”

_“Ronald._ ”

There’s a flurry of moment as not only Ron, but Seamus and Dean as well, share a wide-eyed look before diving into their bags for parchment.

Harry takes the opportunity to lunge for the coffee pot.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

Whatever charms heat the castle during the winter haven’t seen it fit to activate yet, leaving the castle damp and chilly. The Charms classroom is minimally warmer, full of early-morning light that pours down through the windows and onto the desks. The early November sky is deceptively sunny, masking the bitter cold of the air.

Despite the copious amount of caffeine he’d consumed, Harry doesn’t feel any more awake than he did at breakfast as he slides into the seat next to Ron. He just feels jittery and on edge. Perhaps he’d had too much coffee on an empty stomach; he can’t concentrate.

Ron scribbles frantically at his essay. With a triumphant ‘Aha!’ he puts his quill down and sits back. Hermione shakes her head, fondly exasperated.

The eighth years have been lucky enough to get separate N.E.W.T. classes from the seventh years, but in exchange all four houses have them together. So, when Flitwick assigns partners to practise memory charms, Harry’s not too thrilled to be placed with Blaise Zabini.

McGonagall can preach unity and forgiveness and harmony until she’s blue, but Harry doesn’t think he’ll ever trust a Slytherin to go poking around in his head. Not that he has much choice in the matter. At least Blaise is one of the better Slytherins, not that that’s saying a lot.

“Potter,” Blaise says, startling Harry out of his thoughts. Blaise’s face is carefully blank. “What did I just say?”

Searching his memory, Harry doesn’t find anything. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I guess it worked, then. Good job, Zabini.”

To Harry’s left, Malfoy snickers. Poor Neville, dark circles under his eyes even more pronounced in the brightness of the classroom, is his partner.

“That would be great, Potter,” Zabini says, annoyed, “if I’d actually cast the spell yet.”

Malfoy snickers even louder. As Flitwick walks by, it morphs into a rather suspect cough. Harry tamps down the surge of anger and says only, “Right, sorry.”

Waving the cobwebs from his mind, Harry gets into position. It takes a minute to get his muscles to relax, to look down Zabini’s wand without the urge to fight overpowering him. He knows that he has no reason to be afraid; Zabini never really hated him, not like Malfoy did. As far as he can tell, Zabini hadn’t even been a fan of Voldemort’s. There is no reason for Zabini to do anything other than what he’s supposed to. But with every slight twitch Zabini makes, Harry can feel his heartbeat increasing. It doesn’t help that there’s nothing but four cups of coffee running through his veins.

“Potter,” Zabini snaps. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying.”

“Right, sorry,” Harry says again. He shakes his hands out, tries to stop thinking. “Let’s go again, okay?”

“You say that like you’ve done anything besides stand there and stare into space,” Malfoy says, lowering his wand from where he’s just finished casting. “Well, Longbottom?”

Shaking his head, Neville scratches at his chin. “What were we talking about?”

Malfoy smiles smugly. He twirls his wand between his fingers and over the back of his knuckles. Showing off, he flips it into the air and catches it smoothly. When he notices Harry watching him, his smirk widens obnoxiously. Harry wants to remind Malfoy that he’s the reason Malfoy has that wand. He didn’t have to return it, probably wouldn’t have if he’d known Malfoy was going to act like nothing had changed.

In the end, Harry decides he’s too hungover to deal with this shit and turns back to Blaise. “I’m ready whenever you are.” Nothing annoys Malfoy more than being ignored.

Blaise releases a long, pent-up breath and gets ready. His wand is long, thin, and of an exceptionally light-coloured wood. Everything is alright, Harry thinks firmly. Blaise is not his enemy.

“Try to remember the number twenty-four.”

Shutting his eyes, Harry focusses.

“Ready? Three, two, one—”

Blaise’s steady words are cut off by a shout.

“Neville, look out!”

There is a loud bang as a spell backfires, the acrid smell of smoke and the sharp tang of lemons suddenly heavy in the air. Harry opens his eyes just in time to see Malfoy’s body hit the floor bonelessly, like a puppet with all its strings cut. A long plume of black smoke drifts out of Neville’s wand towards the ceiling. At his side, Seamus steadies himself on Neville’s arm, face white with shock.

Neville’s tremulous voice is the first to break the utter silence. “Malfoy?”

Malfoy doesn’t so much as stir. He’s fallen carelessly, one leg tucked under him, the other straight out. The back of his head had hit the floor fairly hard, given the fact he’d fallen straight over backwards. If it weren’t for the subtle rise and fall of his chest, Harry would think he were dead. Pale blond hair, usually so well-managed, sticks up all over the place.

“What’s going on here?” Flitwick pops up from someplace.  

“I was casting the spell and—”

“I tripped and grabbed his arm—”

Coming up beside Seamus, Dean joins in, “Neville had already started saying _‘Obliviate,_ ’ so the spell went off anyway. It hit Malfoy and he just—dropped.”

Flitwick rushes to Malfoy’s side. He begins waving his wand, muttering underneath his breath, spells that Harry’s never even heard of before. The air above Malfoy goes all wavy, and strange colours flicker above him. With every spell, Flitwick's face goes paler.

“Is he dead?” Blaise asks tonelessly. His throat works hard as he swallows, and at his side his hand slowly clenches and unclenches.

“No,” Flitwick grits out. “Someone get Poppy.”

Everyone looks at each other for a second. Harry meets the wide eyes of several other students, but he can’t seem to get his legs to move. After what seems an eternity, one of the Patils gets herself together and sprints from the room.

Whatever spell came over the room breaks. Hermione goes to Ron’s side and Pansy Parkinson rushes to Malfoy’s. She drops hard onto her knees, scooping up one of his hands. Her mouth moves as she says something desperately into Malfoy’s ear.

Ponderously, Gregory Goyle makes his way through the sea of students. He hesitates at the edge of the circle that’s formed, thick face twisted into a look of terror. Harry watches as he steps forward, once, twice, then bends down; he picks up Malfoy’s wand gingerly from underneath one of the benches. He stares down at it, and Harry thinks he looks as if he might cry.

“This doesn’t look good.” Harry hadn’t even noticed Zabini’s approach.

“No,” he agrees absently.

The scene before him looks like one of the more dramatic paintings from around the castle. Flitwick’s litany of spells has covered Malfoy with a hazy glow. Speckles of light dance over his cheekbones, and his robes shift softly as though there’s a faint breeze or he’s underwater. None of it feels real. Harry feels like he’s underwater too, as though he’ll breathe out and see bubbles floating towards the ceiling.

Blaise regards him critically as he rubs his eyes and exhales. Nothing, just a headache spreading behind his eyes and an odd mix of emotions building tumultuously in his chest. “Are _you_ alright?” he asks.

“No,” Harry says, and runs from the room to vomit.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

Dinner is as boisterous as ever. Either the news that Malfoy’s lying in a hospital bed hasn’t made the rounds yet or nobody cares. A spoonful of mashed potatoes comes sailing down the table courtesy of a first year, but none of the eighth years react. Even though their hangovers have finally abated, none of them are feeling very cheerful.

Harry’s gaze keeps drifting towards the Slytherin table. Only five of them returned for the year, and only three are at dinner now. Goyle stares blankly at a plate full of food. Next to him, Millicent Bulstrode pushes a porkchop around with a fork, chin in her hand. Harry can only see Blaise’s back, the line of his shoulders stiff.

“Has anyone heard anything?” Hermione asks.

Slowly, Harry drags his eyes back to his own table.

“I stopped by after Herbology,” Neville says suddenly. It’s the first thing he’s said since that morning. His hair is sticking up where he’s run a hand through it. “He was still unconscious. I wasn’t supposed to hear, but Madam Pomfrey said they called in a professional from St. Mungo’s. They’ll be here tomorrow. It doesn’t look good.” His eyes go back to the woodgrain of the table as though he hadn’t spoken at all.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Dean says weakly.

“I’m sure his father will hear about this,” Seamus adds. None of them laugh at the feeble attempt at a joke.

The sky above is already black, scattered with stars; with each passing day there has been less daylight. Harry’s gaze drifts back to the Slytherin table. The empty seat next to Goyle feels like a black hole, drawing in Harry’s attention as well as the flickering light of the candles.

The silence at the Gryffindor table continues. Finally, with a heavy sigh, Ron breaks it. “If anyone had to get their memory wiped, at least it was Malfoy.” Upon looking up, he notices everyone is watching him. His cheeks go red. “What? If anyone deserved it, it was him. Think about everything he’s done to us.” He shakes off the hand Hermione’s put on his arm. “No, Hermione, think about everything he’s said to you. How many times has he called you a Mudblood?”

As soon as he stops talking, the silence descends, more oppressive than ever. Ron tries again. “It’s not like it was Harry or—or Seamus, or…” he trails off lamely, realising that he’s overstepped.

Neville stands abruptly. His knife clatters down beside his plate. “I can’t take this anymore.” His hands shake as he gathers his things. “I’m going to check up on Malfoy. I’ll see you guys later.” Dodging a hand that reaches out towards him, he races from the Great Hall.

“Nice one, Ron,” Dean says without much heat.

“I didn’t mean it like that…”

Hermione lays a hand back on his arm, and he looks at her apologetically. The harsh sound of forks on plates resumes as the eighth years pretend everything is normal. A sudden peal of laughter from the Hufflepuff table makes half of them flinch.

At the Slytherin table, Goyle turns Malfoy’s wand over and over again in his hands.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

By Monday morning, Malfoy is all anyone is talking about. Neither the professional from St. Mungo’s nor the weekend’s duration have been enough to wake him, and he lies in the infirmary as the other eighth years go to their classes. There are few enough of them that his presence would be noticed, even if he hadn’t been the only subject on their minds.

“I heard that his memory was completely wiped. When he wakes up, he won’t remember a thing,” Michael Corner whispers in Defence.

“I heard that he’s like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for a prince to come kiss him,” one of Gryffindor’s new Chasers jokes during practise.

“I heard Malfoy’s just faking. That it’s some kind of stunt to get his father out of Azkaban,” says Justin Finch-Fletchley in Potions.

“I heard that Malfoy’s basically dead, like the only reason he’s even still breathing is because they put, like, a thousand spells on him,” Susan Bones says in Herbology.

All of it is giving Harry a headache. By now, he’s heard enough rumours to choke a hippogriff, but he still can’t help but listen in every time he hears Malfoy’s name. No one else seems to be bothered like he is except Neville, who flinches every time he hears a word so much as start with the letter m.

Every night, Neville returns to the common room right at curfew, laden down with as many heavy books as he can carry. Harry’s woken up twice during the night, only to find Neville still reading away, the curtains of his bed glowing warmly red from the light of a _Lumos_. If he’s not in the library or Gryffindor house, he’s in the infirmary. Hermione tries to tell him how unhealthy he’s being, but Neville only blinks at her tiredly and goes back to a book titled _The Memorie and the Mynd_. This is probably the first time it’s been out of the library in the last century.

As much as Harry hates the gossip, what follows is worse: everyone stops talking about Malfoy entirely. It's as though he never existed.

The second week of November draws to a close, the sky turning steely grey and threatening snow. The temperature plummets to below-freezing temperatures, and Hogwarts’s heating charms finally, grudgingly, kick to life. In Astronomy, they track the gradual shifting of the constellations; the Earth turns on.

Malfoy is missing a great deal of classes.

Even as November reaches its windy, bitter end, Harry keeps on expecting Malfoy to stroll back into class one day, smirking and acting as though he never left.

It isn’t until he’s passing by the Ravenclaw table and hears Malfoy’s name that Harry realises how desperately he’s been waiting for information. He skids to a halt, and his feet carry him to Stephen Cornfoot and Terry Boot quite without him realising it.

“Hi, Harry,” Terry says, blinking up at him.

“I, er—I heard you mention Malfoy?”

The Ravenclaws share a look.

“Yeah, my sister’s a Healer at St. Mungo’s,” Stephen says awkwardly, once he realises that Harry isn’t going away. “She heard some of the other Healers talking, you know how it is.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Harry demands.

Stephen looks at Terry for help, but Terry takes a big bite of sandwich and looks away. Twisting in his seat, Stephen turns to better face Harry.

“It’s complicated, I guess,” he says. Harry stares at him until he elaborates. “Well, he didn’t actually lose his memory. But it’s like Neville hit the rewind button, and Malfoy got sent way back to the beginning of the movie. Now he’s gotta rewatch everything in order to catch up, y’know? So he’ll be fine; he’ll wake up.” Here Stephen pauses. He contemplates the best way to put it, and decides on bluntness. “He’ll wake up… in eighteen years, give or take.”

“Give or take.” Harry’s voice is flat, even to his own ears.

Stephen frowns, picking at his pants. “Yeah. He’ll probably skip around here and there. He probably won’t have to go through the first few years of his life; nobody remembers those.”

“Oh. Okay.” Harry turns to walk away, then turns back. Stiffly, he says, “Thanks.”

Woodenly, he drops into his seat at the Gryffindor table and stares down at the empty plate before him.

“Alright, mate?” Ron asks him, already shovelling his plate high with food.

Harry’s about to answer when he notices the seat across from him is unusually empty. “I’ll be back later, don’t wait up.” He ignores Ron’s concerned look and leaves the Great Hall in a hurry.

Up and up he goes, ignoring the staircases he climbs and the portraits he passes until he comes to Gryffindor Tower. Throwing open the chest at the end of his bed, he digs through old textbooks, winter cloaks, pieces of Quidditch gear, and Ron’s chess set until he finds the Marauder’s Map. He hasn’t used it since the Battle, and he’s ashamed to see that one of the corners has gotten bent from something sitting on it.

Unfolding it carefully, he searches for Neville’s dot. It’s not in the library where he expected it to be, but he finds it at last; Neville is in the infirmary, right beside the little dot labelled ‘Draco Malfoy.’ Harry’s stomach plummets as he refolds the Map and puts it away.

In a short time, he’s made his way down to the Hospital Wing. Easing open the heavy doors, he steps into the infirmary. The air here is cool and crisp, almost tangible against Harry’s skin. It smells of disinfectant and lemongrass, and the light coming in through the windows is dim with the very last rays of the sun.

Harry finds Neville sitting in a chair at Malfoy’s bedside. A half-full bottle sits on the bedside table, filled with some sort of viscous green liquid. There’s a pile of papers; when Harry gets closer, he sees that they’re notes for various classes. Pansy’s name is written in the corner of the top sheet.

“Neville,” Harry says quietly.

Startled, Neville jumps. There’s a faint ripping sound from the book on his lap.

“Harry? What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you.” Harry very deliberately doesn’t look at Malfoy, at the soft rise and fall of the crisp white bed sheets. He doesn’t think Malfoy would appreciate Harry seeing him so vulnerable.

“Is something wrong?” Nothing besides this whole situation, Harry thinks.

“I just heard about what was wrong with Malfoy. I didn’t know if you knew,” Harry says quietly.

Neville sets his book aside. The page he was on is hanging by a thread. Pince will throw a fit if she sees it like that.

“About how he’s going to be stuck like this for years?” Neville says, surprising Harry.

“You knew?”

Neville shakes his head, although not to deny. He pinches the bridge of his nose and looks so tired that Harry thinks he should be in one of these beds too. “Madam Pomfrey told me. She saw how I’ve been trying to help—not that I’ve found _anything_ —and thought I might want to know.”

The room is still and silent. As the last vestiges of sunlight disappear, lanterns light automatically, their soft glow spreading over the room. The light of one spreads over the pillow, dyeing Malfoy’s hair gold.

For the first time since the accident, Harry looks at him. If he didn’t know better, he would think Malfoy were only sleeping. He looks more peaceful than Harry has ever seen him. His eyelashes cast faint shadows on his cheeks. As Harry watches, his eyelids flutter gently, as though Malfoy is dreaming.

“There’s nothing they can do?”

“No,” Neville says roughly. “He has to wake up on his own. They’re hoping that maybe it’ll be sooner rather than later, but it would be a miracle. If he doesn’t wake up by the end of winter hols, they’re moving him to St. Mungo’s—permanently. The Janus Thickey Ward.” Neville’s voice breaks. “He’ll be right across from my parents. I’ll see him every time I go to visit them. Every time I see them, I’ll see Malfoy and know this was my fault.”

“Neville,” Harry says gently, “it was an accid—”

“I _know_ it was an accident,” Neville shouts. He freezes, but Madam Pomfrey must be at dinner with everyone else, because she doesn’t appear. When he speaks again, his voice is low and defeated. “I know it was an accident. I know it’s not my fault Seamus bumped into me, and I know that we were all hungover and tired and what happened was a million-in-one accident. But that doesn’t change the fact that Malfoy’s lying in this bed because of me.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say. He settles for “I’m sorry”, although he knows it’s not enough.

“Me too,” Neville whispers. He picks his book back up, carefully turning through the pages. Wordlessly, Harry has been dismissed.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

Harry is awakened by someone shaking his shoulder. Startled out of a dream filled with odd green light and something chasing him through a forest, he panics, striking out. His elbow collides with something, and there is a soft “oof” of pain.

“Ow, Harry, stop,” Neville says, trying to grab at his flailing arms.

“Neville?” Harry groans, sitting up in bed, squinting in the darkness. His bed curtains have been pulled open, and faint, cool moonlight drifts through the room. A light breeze causes the curtains to sway; Dean has left the window open again.

Taking this as an invitation, Neville crawls onto the end of Harry’s bed, pulling the curtains closed and casting a Muffling Charm. There’s a massive book in his arms and he drops it straight onto Harry’s knees. A faint cloud of dust rises from the cover like a sulky little ghost. The cover is thick and—as far as Harry can tell in the gloom—dark-red with a title in gold filigree.

“What time is it?” Harry asks groggily.

“It doesn’t matter,” Neville says. His eyes are bright and feverish as he opens the book and begins flipping through the pages. “No, no, no… here!” He flips the book around and pushes it into Harry’s lap.

Blinking down at the pages, Harry squints. After retrieving his glasses, the words become a bit clearer. They’re clearly instructions on some sort of spell, but the entire page is written with such a mixture of archaic words and specialised terminology that Harry can barely understand it. Underneath his fingertips, the pages are soft and thin as tissue paper.

“What is this?” It seems to be some kind of binding or linking spell.

“The answer,” Neville says vehemently, “to Malfoy’s problem.”

He takes the book back from Harry and cradles it in his arms. “I’ve read so many books on mind magic and memory charms that I thought I was going to go insane. But— _finally_ —I found this one. It’s got a spell called the Mind-Channelling Charm. Listen to this: ‘Allows the caster to join their mind to another.’ I’m sure it has some obscure, terrible use, considering I took this out of the Restricted Section, but it’s perfect!”

Harry rubs his temples, wondering if he’s still dreaming. If he lays back down now, he can probably get back to sleep for another couple hours at least. “Neville, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Harry, we can save Malfoy.”

Every trace of sleepiness is gone in a rush. “What? How?” He takes the book back, but the page is just as confusing as before. He can’t even make out the words Neville’d quoted to him.

“The problem with Malfoy is that he’s stuck in his own head, going through his memories. He probably doesn’t know what he’s doing, or even who he is. But if someone were to connect their mind to his, they could speed up the process. A _lot_. They could go in there and drag him back out.”

“Someone as in…?”

Neville has the sense to look sheepish at least. “Someone as in you. I suppose I _could_ do it, but the deeper connection you have with the other person, the better chance of the spell working. Sure, Malfoy made fun of me a lot, but compared to him and you...”

“It is dangerous?”

“I won’t say it’s not,” Neville says. His earlier enthusiasm dims. “It could go wrong, really, really wrong; you could get stuck in Malfoy’s mind too. It would be too risky to go after you if that happened.”

“I’ll do it.”

“You will?” Neville looks surprised. To be fair, Harry’s surprised too.

It’s Malfoy. They’re not friends. They don’t even like each other. Why is he so eager to risk life and limb for him? The funny thing is, he knows exactly what Malfoy would say if he knew what Harry is planning to do: _Classic Potter, even after killing the Dark Lord, you still have to be a hero_ or _Fuck off, Potter, I don’t need your pity_.

He can’t be sure, though. Absurdly, he wants to know what Malfoy would actually say, if the little voice in his head is accurate, or if he’s already forgetting how Malfoy acted, how Malfoy sounded. It might be one of the most messed-up things about him, which is saying a lot, but he misses Malfoy. Besides, he’d already saved Malfoy once; it’s not like he should be questioning now whether Malfoy’s worth saving or not. He’s already made that choice.

“When?” Harry asks, determined.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

December.

Malfoy has been unconscious a month and a half.

In the past three weeks, the snow finally came. Hogwarts lies under a thick white blanket, the grounds sparkling like hundreds of jewels. Snow covers every tower and parapet; the lake is trapped under a thick layer of ice. A handful of snowmen are scattered on the castle grounds, enchanted to wave or throw snowballs whenever someone comes close.

Christmas is barely a week away, but Harry isn’t feeling very festive this year. Come Christmas day, he might just be in a hospital bed of his own. As the day inches ever closer, Harry finds he can barely sleep.

More than anything, he wants to talk with Ron and Hermione. Neville hadn’t thought it wise to involve them, and Harry had grudgingly agreed. He feels terrible lying to them, and he misses their support desperately, but he can’t risk them stopping him; there isn’t enough time. Malfoy’s condition hasn’t improved in the slightest.

Trying to convince them that no, he doesn’t want to go to the Burrow for Christmas and no, he isn’t mad at them and no, he doesn’t want them to stay with him, he wants them to go and have fun is harder than he thinks using the spell will be.

“Look, if this is about Ginny, her new boyfriend isn’t coming.” Ron looks at him earnestly.

“Ginny has a new boyfriend?” Harry asks. He’s not sure how he feels about this information.

Ron looks at Hermione for help.

“Harry, we _want_ you there,” she says, smiling. She’s got a pair of fuzzy white earmuffs on, and her cheeks are red from cold. Snowflakes cling in her hair and eyelashes.

“I know,” he says, and leans down to wrap her in a hug. Her breath is warm against his neck. He does the same with Ron, then steps back. “I want to be here. It’s Hogwarts. I love the Burrow, but this is my last chance to have Christmas here, at my first home.” He doesn’t realise how sincerely he means it until the words are free.

Looking back at the spires of the castle, a sharp pain of longing goes through his chest. It hurts more, he thinks, to miss something that isn’t gone yet.

“I love you guys,” Harry says, feeling sentimental. He can’t think that this might be the last time he’ll see them for a long while. The spell will go right; it has to.

“It’s not too late,” Ron says. “Train’s still waiting.”

Harry exhales. His breath crystallizes in the air, hanging briefly before the wind steals it away. “Go ahead, guys. It won’t wait forever. Keep a look out in the post for your presents.”

Hermione reaches out, brushes some snow from his hair. “We’ll miss you, Harry.”

“Me too.”

He watches them traipse off through the snow towards the Express, their joined hands swinging merrily between them. The bright red of the Hogwarts Express stands out starkly against the snow-covered ground, and it billows steam into the clear morning sky.

Hermione and Ron stick their heads out of their compartment and wave as the train kicks to life. Harry cups his hands around his mouth, yells, “Happy Christmas!” He waves until the train is out of sight, then lets his hand drop back to his side.

Harry stands in the cold and watches the point where the train vanished.

When he can’t feel his fingers and toes anymore, he turns and goes back into the castle.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

Nightfall descends. Neville nervously checks and rechecks the bag of things he’s packed. For his part, Harry has nothing besides his wand. He’s still dressed in his clothes from earlier, jeans and an old t-shirt with a logo so faded he can’t tell what it’s supposed to be advertising.

For the eleventh time, Neville checks the clock. “Okay,” he says nervously. “I think we can go now.”

They crowd together underneath the invisibility cloak. They’re too big for it, and their feet jut out the bottom. Hopefully if they hurry, no one will notice a disembodied pair of shoes walking down the corridors.

Harry doesn’t think he’s felt this anxious since first year. Every noise sends his heart rate skyrocketing, but with all the students gone, the halls are incredibly bare. There are no prefects to catch them, no teachers worrying about students getting up to mischief. This is why they waited this long, spent the last month going to class and pretending everything was normal.

The infirmary is filled with faint blue light and quiet as a morgue. Harry shivers. Malfoy is the only person in the entire room. His hair is white in the moonlight, and Harry can’t tell if Malfoy’s paler than he was before or it’s just his imagination.

They shuck off the cloak and stand there, uncertain where to begin.

“Pull that bed close to his.”

Harry complies, grabbing the cot next to Malfoy’s and pushing the beds together. The sound of the legs on the stone floor makes a spine-tingling sound and Harry grimaces. Hopefully Pomfrey is either a deep sleeper or gone home for Christmas.

Pulling up a chair, Neville begins pulling things out of his bag. First the book, then his wand, and finally a bottle filled with an indeterminably-coloured liquid. “Drink this,” he says. “Calming Potion.”

Harry hesitates a moment, then pulls out the cork and downs the entire bottle. He climbs on the empty bed and leans back, trying to breathe, wondering how long the potion will take to take effect.

Neville opens the book up to the right page, setting his bookmark aside. “Last chance to change your mind, Harry,” he says. “I can do it.”

Harry shakes his head. “I’m ready.” He sounds more confident than he feels.

“Okay.” With a finger, Neville skims over the words. “You’ll need to take his hand.”

Malfoy’s covered with the sheet up to his neck, so Harry has to pull the blankets down and tug Malfoy’s arm free. It feels wrong, almost creepy, especially with Malfoy not reacting in the slightest.

His face is serene. A cloud passes over the moon, its shadow drifting across Malfoy’s features. His hand, when Harry takes it, is strangely limp. His fingers are long and thin, cool to the touch. Unexpectedly, Harry has a crisis about how he’s supposed to hold it—does he intertwine their fingers, or does he just clasp them? He’d never quite been able to figure it out with Ginny, either.

The thought makes him laugh softly, mostly just a huff of air. He waves Neville off and leans back, resting his head on the pillow and shutting his eyes. The world boils down to the sound of paper and the feeling of Malfoy’s hand in his own.

It does remind him a bit of Sleeping Beauty, Harry thinks. He wonders who Malfoy’s true love is. Parkinson? They dated for a bit, but she doesn’t seem right. Who else is there? Bulstrode? The thought makes him want to laugh again. He supposes it doesn’t matter. It would just make things a bit easier if Malfoy could be fixed with a kiss and not a spell liable to have Harry joining Malfoy and Lockhart in St. Mungo’s.

“Hey, Neville?” Harry asks.

“Yeah?”

“I left Ron and Hermione’s presents on my bed. If—if I can’t mail them, can you?”

“Yeah,” Neville whispers, voice scratchy.

“Yours is there, too. The little red one.”

“Okay,” Neville chokes out.

“I’m ready whenever you are.”

There is a minute where Neville composes himself. “Ready. And, Harry?” Harry waits. “Thank you.”

They begin. Neville murmurs the spell, word after word, until it all blends together. It surrounds Harry, fills him up. He feels a bit like he’s floating, drifting away on the tide. The air around him grows warmer, brighter, and he breathes in and out, focussing on Malfoy’s hand.

Neville’s voice goes lower, indistinct. It doesn’t even sound like words anymore, just a low buzz that Harry can feel against his skin. The air, he thinks, smells like honeysuckle.

There’s a tickle on the back of his hand, and he pulls it free from Malfoy’s without thinking, opening his eyes.

A bee lifts off from his hand, the buzzing sound increasingly momentarily as it flies by his ear, and then ends as it zooms away. High green hedges surround Harry, a warm summer sun shining down from directly above. Somewhere nearby, there is a loud, warbling birdcall.

Wherever he is, Harry is alone.


	2. the rains will wash it away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the lovely kudos and comments on the last chapter! you guys are the best. also, apologies for any errors. word kept crashing every time i tried to spell-check.

It quickly becomes apparent that Harry is in a hedge maze. He wanders aimlessly for what feels like ages, although the sun hangs in the same spot in the sky. There is no shade in the maze, and soon enough sweat trails down the back of his shirt, dampening the collar.

Either Harry is abysmal at directions or the maze is unusually large, because he hasn’t seen so much as a sign of an exit since he landed here. He needs to get out of here, but every turn just reveals more of the same perfectly-maintained hedges. The only change in the monotony is the occasional white peacock, staring down judgmentally from the hedge tops.

There is only one place pretentious enough to have peacocks and an entire hedge maze, Harry thinks, and it starts with Malfoy and ends with Manor. That, at least, is good news. Now if only he can get out of here and find Malfoy. Then he just needs to shake some sense into him and they’ll be done. Not much of a plan, but he and Neville hadn’t actually been sure the spell would work until it had.

Harry’s about ready to _Diffindo_ his way out of the maze when the sound of footsteps behind him makes him startle. He whirls around, reaching for his wand—his hand scrambles uselessly at his side.

Luckily, the footsteps belong only to a small child, about five or six; Harry can never tell the difference when children are around that age. The boy doesn’t seem to notice Harry at all. In fact, the boy runs straight through him. It’s the weirdest sensation Harry’s ever felt, as though his legs were just dipped in ice water. Harry is hit with a mix of emotions not his own: _nervousexcitedhappyworried_. The boy goes straight out Harry’s other side, leaving his legs tingling violently, as though they’d fallen asleep, and his head swimming.

Harry whirls, disoriented, but the boy’s already passing out of sight down the next corner. His pale blond head of hair disappears. Harry gives chase. He just barely keeps up, and by the time they skid to a stop, Harry’s breathing hard.

They’re in a courtyard. The ground is paved with pale bricks in a herringbone pattern. Some of them rise and fall like the countryside, pushed up by the roots of a large oak tree. In the centre of the courtyard is a large fountain carved to look like a dragon, its mouth upturned, breathing water rather than fire. The boy runs to it and Harry goes to a nearby bench to sit and watch him.

He’s in a memory, that much he can be certain of. That means that the small boy currently rinsing mud off his hands is Draco Malfoy.

It is… very strange seeing Malfoy as a child. His hair is the longest that Harry’s ever seen it, all the way down to his jaw. It would pale, apparently, as he aged, but the boy is unmistakably Malfoy. Even this young, his face is pointy and faintly aristocratic. In the rare occasions Harry imagined Malfoy as a child, he’d never been this small. In Harry’s mind, Malfoy had always been that eleven-year-old from Madam Malkin’s.

Harry watches him for another minute as he struggles to get clean. Malfoy frequently looks over his shoulder, but he doesn’t move from the fountain. It gives Harry a chance to think.

There’s no doubt in his mind that this is a memory. He recognises the way everything seems _too much_ : the sun, too bright; the smell of the honeysuckle climbing the hedges, too heavy; the sound of birds squawking, too loud. But if this is a memory, then how is he supposed to communicate with Malfoy? The young boy splashing in the water won’t be able to see or hear him, no matter what he does.

“There you are, you little shit.”

Harry jumps into the air.

_Problem solved,_ he thinks after a long, stunned second.

“First you dig in the flowers, then you run off into the maze the second I turn around,” Malfoy—the real Malfoy, tall and thin and scowling—scolds. “Who do you think you are?”

The younger Malfoy does not answer, of course; he can’t see himself any more than he can see Harry.

Harry watches Malfoy breathe out slowly, then crouch down beside his younger self. The look in his eyes is indecipherable. He reaches out a hand haltingly, and shivers when his fingertips pass through the cheek of his own image.

He mouths something. Shakes his head. Rises again, long legs unfolding stiffly. He turns briefly, his gaze catching on Harry before fluttering away again. It snaps back as he double-takes. Malfoy’s forehead creases further the longer their eyes remain locked.

At last, the tension grows too palpable and breaks. “Can you see me?” Malfoy asks. The timbre of his voice is off.

“Yes,” Harry says, because he can’t stand to see the fragile look of hope on Malfoy’s face crumble.

Malfoy’s shoulders visibly slump with relief. For a second, Harry thinks that Malfoy recognises him, that this is going to be the easiest thing he’s ever done, here and back before Neville so much as blinks. Then Malfoy’s mouth curls up into a small smile and Harry’s heart falls.

Malfoy would never look at him like that.

Harry can feel his mouth twist in disappointment, and Malfoy must see it because he freezes. The small smile falls from his lips as a much more familiar emotion takes hold. Anger.

“You,” he says, raising a finger threateningly. “You did this to me.”

Taken aback, Harry doesn’t respond. Malfoy steps around the fountain so the view between them is unobstructed and continues.

“Do you know how long I’ve been wandering around this place, thinking that I was going insane? No one can see me, no one can hear me. Not my parents, not the elves, not _myself_.” He jabs a finger at the other Malfoy, still trying futilely to wash the grime from his robes. “What did you do you me?” he hisses.

“Technically,” Harry says, mouth feeling rather dry, “it was Neville that did this to you.” It is, perhaps, the wrong thing to say.

Malfoy looks as though he’s going to attack Harry. His hand goes to his side, reaching for his wand, but comes up with nothing but air. Suddenly, his anger dissipates. He looks down at his hand, bewildered, as though he had no idea what it was just doing.

When he speaks next, his voice shakes. Harry sees through the anger he tries to project, sees the way Malfoy’s hands tremble at his sides. Malfoy isn’t angry; he’s terrified.

“Who’s Neville? What did he do to me?” A pause. “Who are _you_?”

It hurts a bit more than it should, considering Harry doesn’t know why it would hurt at all.

A voice shouts Malfoy’s name from towards the Manor, and the three of them turn. Young Malfoy hastily dries his hands on his robes and takes off. Malfoy looks between him and Harry, torn.

“Come on,” he says at last. “I can’t lose him. But don’t think you’re getting out of this.”

Harry scrambles up from the bench. He and Malfoy take off in the direction of the Manor. Malfoy makes him run in front, and he can feel Malfoy’s suspicious glances at his back the entire way.

They’re out of the maze in less than a minute, which Harry feels a faint bit of irritation at. Ahead of them, the Manor looms. Harry halts, filled with trepidation, and Malfoy almost runs into him.

“What?” he snaps. “It’s my house.”

And therein lies the problem. It might be Malfoy’s house, but it’s also the house where Bellatrix tortured Hermione, the house where Luna was held prisoner, the house where Dobby met his end. How is he supposed to tell Malfoy that these walls will harbour the worst Dark Lord of their age? That these walls will see torture and death and ruin? How does one even broach the topic when the person you’re talking to doesn’t even know your name? So much happened during Harry’s seven years at Hogwarts that he doesn’t know where to start.

On the steps of that Manor, white marble pristine, stands Lucius Malfoy. He’s taller than Harry recalls, and foreboding in a black cloak. His hair is starkly blond against it, hanging halfway down his back. Although his face is less marked by age, it’s still lined with displeasure.

The younger Draco comes to a halt. Behind his back, he wrings his hands nervously.

“Inside,” says Lucius, frowning. “Now.”

Malfoy bounds up the steps and follows his father into the house. The door slams shut behind them, and the world goes still. Colours mute, draining to a shade of their former glory, although not disappearing completely, and everything besides him and Malfoy freezes. They’re the only two things of full-colour, vivid against the pale, frozen landscape. The air feels fragile as spun glass.

“What is this?”

Malfoy looks around, unperturbed. “The memory is over. That’s what these are, right? Memories? Or is this the past?” He crosses his arms over his chest defensively.

“They’re memories.”

“And this Neville put me here? Why?”

Harry sits down on the steps of the Manor. The marble is oddly cool under his hands for such a warm summer day.

“It was an accident. We were practising _Obliviate_ in Charms and he… misfired. He felt awful about it, so he found this spell. He sent me here to help you.” He doesn’t think Malfoy would appreciate it if he used the word ‘save.’ Malfoy barely even looks like he believes him.

“ _Obliviate_ ,” Malfoy says, trying out the world. He looks merely thoughtful for a moment. “It erases memories, right?” He sees the expression blossoming on Harry’s face and swiftly quashes it. “Don’t look so hopeful. It’s not like I can remember ever learning the spell. I just know what it does, Merlin knows why.”

“What _do_ you remember?” says Harry carefully.

Malfoy hesitates, then sits down on the steps too, as far from Harry as he can possibly get. “Everything up to a little after my sixth birthday.”

It’s honestly a lot further ahead than Harry had thought he’d be, by the way people were talking. But that probably has more to do with Malfoy not remembering much of his younger years than any actual effort to recall anything. Harry hums thoughtfully.

“Have you tried to think further ahead?” he asks. “Like your first year of Hogwarts?”

Malfoy picks up a blade of grass and rips it apart methodically. “Once I go through a memory, I have no idea how I ever managed to forget. It’s so obvious. But trying to remember things on my own is like—” He waves a hand in the air, frustrated. “It’s like trying to grasp water. Sometimes I think I almost have something, but it just slips away. It doesn’t help that I have no idea what I’m trying to remember.”

He dumps the shredded bits of grass onto the walkway and they fade away.

“It gives me a headache. It’s so much easier to just let them come naturally.”

“We can’t just ‘let them come.’ Malfoy, every day that passes in here, a day passes in the real world too. Do you want to be stuck in here for a decade? You’d go insane!”

Malfoy head whips towards Harry, his eyes bright. “And who are you to be here anyway?”

“It’s—me,” Harry says lamely. “Potter. Harry Potter? You don’t recognise me at all?”

“The baby who killed the Dark Lord?” Malfoy looks taken aback. “We’re friends?”

Harry coughs into his shoulder. “I wouldn’t call us _friends_ , per se…”

“No,” Malfoy muses, almost to himself. “We’re not friends at all, are we? Do we even get along?”

Harry’s face must give it away, because Malfoy laughs once, a sharp bark. His fingers curl into the legs of his trousers—he’s wearing his Hogwarts robes.

“No, you don’t even like me. Then why are you here? So you can dig through every single one of my memories for blackmail? So you can rub it in my face that you’re the reason I get out of this mess?”

“I’m here because you needed help, you insufferable bastard!” Harry snaps.

Suddenly, they’re both standing. Even if he doesn’t remember anything concrete, Harry’s sure that Malfoy recognises him somewhere deep down. There’s no other reason why they would be at each other’s throats like always.

“I don’t want your help,” Malfoy seethes. “Get out of my head and go back to wherever you came from.”

“I _can’t_. Like it or not, I’m stuck here with you. The only way you’re getting rid of me is to fix this, and then you never have to look at me again. But I’m here to help you, so quit being so proud and accept my help!”

The words are out of Malfoy’s mouth before he even realises what he’s shouting. “I’m so sick of you, Potter! You always have to be the hero!”

There’s a crack like thunder, and the world around them rips to pieces. The sunny sky goes dark, and a sudden wind surrounds them, buffeting Harry’s hair and whipping Malfoy’s cloak around with a sharp crack. The ground underneath their feet is suddenly wet, water pooling on a bathroom floor.

The world goes blue, shadow-tinged and ominous. Diluted blood swirls in the water around Harry’s trainers. The air is heavy, heavy, like syrup, and Harry can’t breathe.

The memory vanishes as quickly as it appeared. Malfoy gives a pained cry and hunches over. His hands twist in his hair so tightly that it must hurt. It takes a minute for him to uncurl, breathing heavily and face pale.

“What the fuck,” he pants, “was that?”

Harry swallows, throat dry. “A memory. From sixth year.”

“And you recognised it?” If he wasn’t in pain, Harry suspects Malfoy would be glaring at him. As it is, Malfoy keeps his eyes shut, face pinched.

“Yes.”

It takes another minute or so for Malfoy to stay, wobbly as a new-born colt. He winces once he reaches his full height, and finally gives Harry the glare he’d been expecting.

“We’re doing it my way.” Malfoy says. He opens the door to the Manor and steps inside. He doesn’t slam it shut in Harry’s face, at least, and Harry’s willing to take what he can get.

He steps after Malfoy.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

_This is taking forever,_ Harry thinks, watching six-year-old Malfoy chase a peacock. In reality, it’s only been around a day, but to say Harry is worried about being stuck in here is an understatement, not to mention the fact that he’s stuck in here with someone who will barely look at him.

He glances over at Malfoy surreptitiously. He’s sitting on a bench twenty feet or so away, chin cupped in one hand, looking bored out of his mind.

When Harry had pictured going into Malfoy’s head to save him, it had been much less awkward. After Harry had gone into the Manor after Malfoy, he’d been privy to a long, harsh lecture by Lucius Malfoy. Lucius’s words run through his head even now.

_‘You are a Malfoy. You will act like it, Draco.’_

Harry’s mostly just been trying to act like he isn’t here. He can’t imagine how embarrassed he’d feel if Malfoy were in his head watching the Dursleys yell at him. He wants to remind Malfoy that the quicker they get out of here, the less Harry will have to see, but every time he so much as makes a peep, Malfoy glares at him.

So, Harry says nothing. He just kicks his feet out and leans back, watching the clouds that scud across the bright blue sky. He closes his eyes and lets the sun warm his face. Might as well get comfortable.

After another ten minutes or so, footsteps approach.

“Fine,” Malfoy snaps. “We’ll do it your way.”

Harry’s surprised Malfoy lasted this long. Watching child-Malfoy isn’t the most interesting thing he’s ever done, and Malfoy’s been doing this for nearly two months. The allure of escape is too powerful for even Malfoy’s pride to turn down.

Malfoy still won’t meet his eyes, but he stands there, tapping one foot impatiently. “What do you want me to do?”

One good thing came of the past day, at least: Harry finally had a chance to work out an actual plan.

“We’re going to see if we can get you to remember the major events of your life without going through every memory. Hopefully you’ll remember the other stuff as we go, but even if you don’t, at least we’ll get out of here.”

“Easy for you to say.” Malfoy scowls. “And how, exactly, do you plan on doing that?”

“After what happened on the steps, I thought maybe the important memories could be triggered. That one that started was—” Harry clears his throat. “Well, it was a pretty big one. I’m not saying we should jump ahead that far, considering what happened to you, but maybe we could, you know, try to work our way up to it.”

Malfoy looks hesitant. One hand raises absently to rub at the centre of his chest.

“Unless you want to be stuck here, with me, for a long time?” Harry prods.

Releasing a breath, Malfoy nods, “All right,” he says. “Where do you suggest we begin?”

This is the most difficult part, really. Harry knows about plenty about Malfoy’s school years. Once they get to first year, he’s certain that he can help restructure Malfoy’s memories. But as for his childhood, Harry knows practically nothing. He says as much.

They sit in silence for a while, watching as young Malfoy tires and goes to lie in the shade. The memory wobbles but stays solid; he’s only resting, not napping.

Suddenly, an idea strikes. “Do you remember Pansy Parkinson?”

The corners of Malfoy’s mouth turn down in thought. Harry takes that as a no.

“You were childhood friends,” he says. What else can he add? “She’s a pureblood. Short black hair, kind of a flat nose. Er—what else is there about Pansy? She, uh…”

Luckily, Harry doesn’t have to say any more. Malfoy’s eyes open wide and he says, faintly, “Oh. _Pansy_.” He only winces mildly as the air around them ripples and warps.

The bench Harry’s sitting on vanishes and he lands hard on his ass. Malfoy snorts in amusement but is too distracted to do much else. Rising and rubbing his tailbone, Harry sees why.

A memory has formed around them. They’re back in Malfoy Manor, in an elaborately decorated sitting room. The wallpaper is a deep red, accentuated with gold. Flames crackle merrily inside a wide fireplace. Outside the window, the treetops are bare and frozen.

It worked.

Before them stands the Malfoy family. Narcissa has a hand on her son’s shoulder, pushing him forward gently. “Go on,” Harry hears her whisper.

Harry steps to the side to see better. Three more people are in the room—a man and a woman, faces indistinct in the haze of Malfoy’s memory, and a small girl, mouth pursed. Pansy. Narcissa pushes Malfoy in her direction a little more insistently.

He steps forward at last. Harry’s never seen a child look so formal; Malfoy is in fine black robes, buttoned right up to his throat.

“It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Malfoy says stiffly, sticking out a hand. He says the words like he’s reciting them from a script, and at the end he glances quickly up at his father. Lucius nods in approval.

“The pleasure is mine,” Pansy replies, accepting Malfoy’s handshake. Rather than her father, she glances at her mother.

Their parents depart, leaving Malfoy and Pansy alone. They shift awkwardly, unsure of what to do, and eventually wander off together to tour the house. It is, Harry thinks, the least organic interaction he’s ever seen. No wonder everyone always said that Slytherins don’t have friends, but allies. He thinks of his own meeting with Ron on the train.

For the next hour, Harry and the real Malfoy trail his copy around the Manor, listening to their strained, halting conversation. They don’t talk about brooms or candy or what they do for fun; the main topic of conversation seems to revolve around what they’ve been learning and, oddly enough, their ancestors.

When they finally go back downstairs and the Parkinsons leave, Harry lets out a huge sigh of relief.

“What?” Malfoy asks, a touch defensive.

“You can’t tell me that wasn’t the most awkward interaction you’ve ever seen.”

Malfoy looks at him as though he’s grown a second head. “It went very well. Pansy is an ideal acquaintance to have.”

“An ideal acquaintance?” Harry splutters.

Malfoy either doesn’t notice the question was rhetorical or doesn’t care. “Yes. She’s a pureblood, her parents are associates of mine, and we share the same political ideals.”

_Your parents’ political ideals, you mean,_ Harry thinks. He ignores that in favour of the more pressing issue at hand.

“Did you even _like_ Pansy?” he says.

“Irrelevant,” Malfoy says, waving a hand dismissively.

In the background, a house-elf brings Malfoy and his parents some tea. They’re talking lowly, but Harry doesn’t care what they’re saying.

“It doesn’t matter to you at all if you hated each other?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Malfoy says. He looks Harry up and down judgmentally. “You were raised by Muggles, weren’t you? Well, if it matters to you so much, I did like her. I would have tolerated her either way, but I remember hoping that we might become close. Do we?”

Harry pauses. He thinks back to their sixth year, the two of them on the train, Pansy running her fingers through Malfoy’s hair. It's the only time Harry can recall Malfoy being willingly touched by anyone. He thinks of all the times Ron had thrown a casual arm around his shoulder, or when he and Hermione had hugged before they’d gotten on the train. Goyle and Crabbe had always just lurked at Malfoy’s elbows. But Malfoy and Parkinson…

“Yeah,” he says. “You guys are close.”

Malfoy looks pleased. Or at least he does for a second, then he’s snapping his fingers impatiently. “We haven’t got all day, Potter. What’s next?”

Harry nearly laughs; an hour ago, Malfoy was dead-set against his plan.

Considering the Pansy idea worked, Harry considers bringing up Goyle or Crabbe, but another idea has been brewing in the back of his mind. He can’t help the smile that rises to his face nor the faint happiness that rushes through his chest unbidden.

“Tell me,” Harry says, “do you know how to fly?”

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

It’s Malfoy’s seventh birthday. They’re outside in the garden again. It’s a perfect day for flying, Harry thinks. The sky is flawlessly blue, stretching into the horizon as far as the eye can see. One of those days when all he wants to do is grab a broom and see how far he can go, set off chasing the sun, hoping that it will never set.

With a whoop of pure, unadulterated joy, Malfoy takes to the sky. He looks happier than Harry’s ever seen him before. From the ground, Lucius, Narcissa, Harry, and Malfoy himself watch.

A breeze picks up, buffeting the treetops and pushing Malfoy sideways. He sways but doesn’t fall, laughing loudly. White-blond hair, freshly cut, shines in the light of the sun.

“I’m never coming down!” Malfoy yells, voice all childlike glee. He zooms around quickly in circles, weaving between the branches of the trees. The smile on his face is so wide it must hurt.

Something aches in Harry’s chest. How did this boy become his worst enemy? They’re so far from the stiff, formal child who met Pansy that Harry can hardly reconcile the two.

It had been a long time since Harry had thought Malfoy was evil. He was often cruel. He was pushed into bad situations, most certainly. He was desperate to win his father’s approval. He was arrogant and proud and infuriating.

But, watching Malfoy fly for the first time, Harry’s suddenly hit by the thought that he really has no idea who Malfoy is at all.

“This was the first time,” Draco says at his side, so softly Harry can barely hear it, “that I’d ever felt really free.”

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

After the memory of Pansy and flying, they hit a roadblock.

Harry mentions Crabbe and Goyle, but Malfoy—looking surprised and more than a little muddled—reveals that he’s already met them sometime between the two memories. That, at least, answers the question of whether Malfoy is going to come back missing half his memories or not.

It only confirms Harry’s earlier thought, though: he really doesn’t know Malfoy at all.

As they awkwardly shuffle through Malfoy’s formative years, Harry learns much more than he’d ever thought he would—or wanted to know—about Malfoy.

They have to take breaks frequently; the faster they go, the more headaches Malfoy gets. Harry’s unsure how long has passed in the real world. It must be two days, in the least. Or time could be speeding by out there, him and Malfoy already in St. Mungo’s, the best years of their lives leached out by the cold of a hospital bed.

Malfoy’d never had a pet, but Lucius kept crups, and Malfoy has a scar on the back of his leg when one of them bit him. Admittedly, he had been pulling on its tails.

(“I was an _awful_ child,” Malfoy says, looking so appalled that Harry can’t help but laugh.

“You were an awful everything,” he says. Malfoy elbows him in the ribs.)

He and Pansy end up meeting at least once a month for tea and to talk. It’s nothing like Harry’s friendship with Ron, but Harry comes to realise that maybe that’s not a bad thing. Malfoy and Blaise Zabini are penfriends, although they never meet.

Perhaps the most unexpected thing of all is that Malfoy hates Theodore Nott. Harry had always thought they were friendly. Malfoy and Nott meet in the spring of Malfoy’s ninth year. It’s a warm day, light and airy, and they walk through the gardens.

“Do you like the peacocks?” Malfoy asks proudly. He hasn’t chased them in years. “They’re albino.”

“Who in the world even has peacocks?” Harry whispers to the real Malfoy. They’re walking side-by-side behind Nott and Malfoy. “Albino peacocks, really?”

Malfoy elbows him again. “My family, obviously,” he says. “And they’re not albino, anyway, they’re—”

Snottily, Nott says, “They’re not albino, Malfoy, they’re leucistic. Don’t you know anything?”

Young Malfoy’s face goes pink in the cheeks. “I was just testing you,” he says hastily, ducking his head and speeding up a bit.

“The only thing I knew was that I wanted to shove him into the hedge,” the real Malfoy says. He and Harry halt, letting the two walk out of sight.

The memory stutters around them like a scratched record. Without Malfoy nearby, the memory cannot run. It halts around them, the world dimming and slowing to a crawl. A leaf freezes near Harry’s head and he touches it. It turns to dust and blows away, nothing but crystallised thought.

“You should have.”

Malfoy hums thoughtfully. “Father would have been… displeased.”

Harry does not deign that with a response. Malfoy quickly picked up on the fact that there is little love lost between Harry and Lucius, and it’s been a source of contention between them ever since. It’s one dark spot in what has turned out to be a surprisingly harmonious situation. Malfoy seems to be of the frame of mind that Harry is a mildly annoying but otherwise harmless nuisance, like a gnat.

They’re getting ever-closer to their real first meeting. It makes Harry nervous. Malfoy might accept Harry now, but will he once he remembers the extent of their dislike?

Suddenly, Harry’s hit by the urge to say something. Why should he hold his tongue if this is all going to blow up anyway?

“Did you let your father decide every one of your friends?”

Malfoy turns to him, scowling. He’s just opened his mouth when a look of pain flashes over his face.

The memory grows thin around them, then cracks like glass. Malfoy raises a hand to a temple, wincing. Around them, a new memory reforms. It’s either autumn or spring, one of those liminal months when the trees are bare and the air hangs indecisively between warm and cool. The first thing that Harry notices is the tar beneath his feet. It surprises him: all the previous memories have been in the Manor. Malfoy didn’t seem to leave it much as a child, Harry thinks.

But now Malfoy is outside the gates, walking down the road with his hands shoved in the pockets of his cloak. He looks angry. Water splatters as he stomps through puddles. Harry has to suppress a snicker.

“Where were you going?”

Malfoy, still rubbing his head, glares at Harry from beneath the pale fringe of his hair. “Away, Potter, obviously.”

“Why?”

“I… can’t remember.”

Fear cuts through Harry’s amusement. “You can’t?”  
Malfoy does a double take at Harry’s expression. He rolls his eyes, exasperated. “I’d fought with my father, about what, I don’t know. It was a long time ago, Potter, and I’m sure it was something stupid. Didn’t you ever fight with your parents?”  
“Well, they were dead,” Harry says dryly. “But I did with the Dursleys once in a while. They just tended to lock me up under the staircase, though, so I tried not to do it much.”

Malfoy snorts, but Harry isn’t laughing.

“You’re not serious?”

Harry doesn’t answer, doesn’t know if he would have, because a football comes sailing out of nowhere. The younger Malfoy flinches, startled out of introspection.

Not a second later, a boy comes running around the corner. He’s about Malfoy’s age, with sandy hair. One of his front teeth is missing, and the shorts he’s wearing might have been white at some point, but are now a combination of green and brown.

“Hullo,” he says, startled at seeing Malfoy. He eyes the ball at Malfoy’s feet.

“...Hello.” Malfoy looks at the ball too, but doesn’t move to give it back.

“I haven’t seen you ‘round before. Where do you live?”

Malfoy points backwards after a minute. He looks a bit bewildered, as though he’d forgotten other people lived in the world.

“Up the road? We don’t go out that way much. Say, what’s your name?”

“Draco,” says Draco.

“Draco? That’s an odd name.” He apologises a second later when Malfoy bristles. “Didn’t mean nothing bad by that. My name’s Clarence, and that’s even worse, but it was my grandad’s name. I go by Nicholas, though—that’s my middle name—which is a lot better than _Clarence_ —”

“Hey, Nick, you got the ball?” A handful of other boys in various states of untidiness come around the corner.

“It’s right here!” Nick calls back, turning around. He hesitates. “Say, do you wanna play footie with us?”

Malfoy swallows, looking between the ball and the boy. “I don’t know how.” It looks as though it pains him to admit it.

“Don’t know how!” Nick is appalled. “I’ll teach you, then. What do you say?”

There is a long, awkward silence. Then, to Harry’s surprise, Malfoy goes, “Okay.”

It’s a bit painful, watching Malfoy try to play football. Apparently, seeker skills don’t transfer well, because Malfoy is absolute rubbish. Further, Malfoy acts stilted. But he warms up gradually, and he’s soon laughing with the others.

“I didn’t know you knew any Muggles,” Harry says to Malfoy. He’s been uncharacteristically silent at Harry’s side. The look on his face is grim, and Harry quickly sees why.

Lucius Malfoy is striding down the hill.

He comes to a stop a dozen feet away. His voice is frigid. “Draco.”

Draco looks up. There’s mud on his cloak, and the smile on his face dies a swift and miserable death.

“Come.”

Draco ducks his head and follows his father. The boys watch him go. Draco doesn’t look back.

The real Malfoy pushes past Harry and goes to follow. Hesitating briefly, Harry goes after him, both curious as to what will happen and ashamed that he is.

Lucius sets an unforgiving pace, and his son has to half-run to keep up.

“Father—” he says.

Abruptly, Lucius halts. Malfoy stumbles, nearly crashing into him. When he turns, it’s almost as though the temperature drops ten degrees.

“I am very disappointed in you,” Lucius says. His voice is full of disgust, although Harry’s not sure about what exactly. Maybe all of it. “You are a Malfoy. We do not associate with _Muggles_. You do not make _friends_ with them.” The words friend and Muggle are both mud in his mouth.

Harry tunes him out after that. _You are a Malfoy, you are a Malfoy._ How many times has Draco heard that in his life, Harry wonders. How many times until Malfoy decided it was all that mattered, a last name and a family tree painted on a wall.

There’s a hand on his arm, suddenly, and he starts.

“Tell me something,” Malfoy says. He’s very close all of a sudden, and Harry can see flecks of hazel in his grey eyes. “Give me a new memory.”

If that were Harry, he wouldn’t want to be here any longer either. But there’s only one memory he can share between now and their first year at Hogwarts. Hopefully it isn’t too big a jump.

“The thirty-first July, 1991,” Harry says. Malfoy’s fingers on his elbow feel like a brand. “Madam Malkin’s robe shop. You were getting fitted for your school robes, and your parents went to get your books.”

The memory slides away in bits, like a puzzle losing its pieces. Harry’s glad to see it go.


	3. if you're looking for solid ground

Long, golden beams of sunlight pour through the windows of Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions, illuminating the motes of dust hanging in the air. The memory feels weighty, or maybe it’s just the way the shadows seem to linger, pooling in every dip and fold of cloth. The room is a violent mix of colours—deep maroons, gentle purples, bright splashes of emerald green.

They’re standing in the entranceway. To Harry’s right, piles and piles of fabric; to his left, the place where customers are outfitted. Young Malfoy’s already there.

Harry looks towards the door, but everything outside is blurry. Malfoy doesn’t know Diagon Alley as well as he does the Manor. Everything other than this room is lost to them. If he steps outside, Harry imagines he’ll be blown away like sand in the wind. Probably not, but he’s not willing to find out.

The younger Malfoy looks around curiously. As soon as Madam Malkin returns, face hidden behind a mountain of cloth, he goes back to indifference. Busy examining his younger self, Malfoy doesn’t notice the door creak open.

Harry had been expecting it, but he still feels like the wind’s been knocked out of him. There he is. Merlin, he thinks, looking at himself. He’d forgotten how scrawny he used to be, all knees and elbows and hair sticking up in twenty different directions. Beneath his glasses (crooked from Dudley breaking them so many times), his eyes are wide with wonder.

“Hogwarts, dear?” Madam Malkin asks him.

Malfoy turns and starts. It takes him a minute to tear his eyes away from younger Harry, only managing it after Madam Malkin goes bustling straight through him. Malfoy shivers violently before turning an accusing look at Harry.

“That’s you.”

“Absolutely not,” Harry says, grinning impishly. (How long has it been since he’s slept?) “A distant cousin, maybe.”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. If Harry didn’t know better, he would think that there was a small smile in the corner of Malfoy’s mouth.

“It’s obviously you, Potter.” He studies Harry. “You look exactly the same, ugly Muggle clothes and all.”

Harry remembers what he’d been thinking about his own appearance and scowls.

Although he doesn’t insult Malfoy’s own appearance as a knee-jerk reaction, it’s a near thing. Instead, he turns back to the interior of the shop to observe a barrel full of buttons. Behind him, his and Malfoy’s younger selves engage in a very one-sided conversation.

“I felt like an idiot that day,” Harry admits. He senses rather than sees Malfoy turn to face him. “You made me feel like I didn’t belong. This whole wonderful, incredible world, and…” he trails off. Tries again. “My childhood was pretty shitty. Finding out I was a wizard was the best moment of my entire life. But then it was like, ‘What if I’m not good enough?’ and ‘What if everyone there hates me too?’”

“Why are you telling me this?”

He raises one shoulder, then lets it fall. “It’s not fair, is it? That I’m here, prying into your most important memories. I figured, I don’t know, that I owed you.”

Harry finally turns. Malfoy is watching him, a slight furrow between his eyebrows. Malfoy looks away first.

“I don’t care about your childhood or your feelings, Potter. I have my own problems to deal with, I’m not going to be your mind-healer.” He brushes some non-existent dust from the front of his robes. “But I suppose you’re right. It is a bit… one-sided. Besides, I’m not one to turn down useful information.”

The door jingles as Harry’s younger self opens the door to leave. Harry can just see the edge of his wide grin as he greets Hagrid.

He hadn’t been expecting it, but Draco speaks again. “Don’t act so special, anyway. Everyone gets nervous. Merlin, imagine how the Mudbloods must feel.” He scowls once he realises Harry’s still looking at him. “Enough of that. Let’s go.”

Throwing open the door to the shop, he steps out into the light.

Harry’s going to take that as a thank you.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

Malfoy’s bedroom. Harry’s seen it once already, back on the first day when Malfoy was six. Little has changed in all that time. The bed is still made up with green bed sheets, and Malfoy’s childhood books still have their place on his shelves. _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ , _The Little Wizard’s Guide to Dragons_ , _Waterwhite’s Alphabet Book of Spells_ … Harry would have guessed that he’d get rid of them, if only to appear mature, but no one seems to come in here. Being here is a privilege Harry has not earned.

It’s the morning of September 1st. In just a few short hours, they’ll all be heading to Hogwarts, filled with hope for the future.

There is a floor-length mirror near the door, and Malfoy stands in front of it, fussing with his hair. It’s been cut very recently. The style makes Harry oddly nostalgic.

“You will do fine,” Malfoy tells his reflection. “You are a Malfoy. Everyone will look up to you. You’ll have the best grades in all your classes. Father will be proud. You’ll make him proud.”

“See?” Malfoy’s voice comes from near Harry’s elbow, and Harry jumps. “Everyone gets nervous.”

“And you said you don’t care about how I feel.”

Malfoy scoffs, striding away. He doesn’t get far; surprisingly, it’s not a large room. It’s almost cosy, with rugs and a squashy armchair by the window, curtains the same shade as the bedding.

“I _don’t_ care, Potter. You just looked absolutely pathetic.”

“Is that so?” Harry asks, tone amused. “Or are you just trying to distract me from the fact it’s taking you half an hour to do your hair?”

“Trust me, Potter, it’s the former. You need all the hair care tips you can get.” Draco smirks.

Harry can’t pinpoint the exact moment when, rather than insults, he started thinking of their conversations as _friendly banter_.

He realises how dangerous it is to let himself believe they’re getting along. He just can’t bring himself to care, not when they’re making so much progress. Besides, it’s not like Harry is the same kid who rejected Malfoy on the Express. Neither is Malfoy. Even if he might not remember for a while.

Harry looks out the window at the sky. It’s overcast in Wiltshire. All of a sudden, the sky lightens, the window reshaping itself around it. There’s a sudden violent surge under Harry’s feet and he stumbles, catching himself on a wall that wasn’t there a second ago.

“I can’t believe that worked.”

The room has shrunk to a fraction of its former size. It’s not a room at all, anymore—they’re in a train compartment. The seats are a faded red, worn from hundreds of students sitting on them. Outside the window, the English countryside whirls past.

Malfoy grins. “I _was_ taking rather long to get ready. Mother’s told me enough of the Express to imagine what it might look like. I didn’t think I’d be able to do it though.”

They’re crammed into the tiny space between the seats. Harry shifts slightly, and he brushes against Pansy. He hadn’t even noticed her behind him until he’s hit by the sudden, foreign presence of her emotions. Fear-tinged excitement rushes through him. He pulls back, but only succeeds in bumping into the real Malfoy. He’s shockingly solid.

Snickering, Malfoy shoves him away. “You’re like a hippogriff in a potions shop.”

The door to the compartment cracks open, and things rapidly get even more cramped.

“I just heard from Nott that Harry Potter’s down in compartment H-7.” Crabbe is standing half-inside Malfoy, head sticking out of Malfoy’s chest. Combined with the horrified look on Malfoy’s face, it’s enough to send Harry into a fit of laughter. He misses what is said next, but it’s easy enough to guess what their destination is when Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle all head out the door.

He sobers immediately. They follow, but every footstep feels more leaden than the last. It’s as though a sudden countdown hangs over his head. T-minus one minute until everything blows up. At least he has that. Sometimes, Malfoy remembers as soon as the memory starts. This, thankfully, doesn’t seem to be that kind.

Should he say something? Oh, Merlin, he should say something. But what? Malfoy already knows they didn’t get along, and obviously he knows they’re about to see younger Harry again, Malfoy’s not an idiot, he must know that they’re about to get into a fight. But Malfoy’s sort of assumed this whole time that _he_ was the one who had turned down Harry’s friendship, not that Harry’s done much to discourage that line of thinking.

He should’ve said something, he should say something _now_ , oh Merlin, they’re almost _there—_

With a flourish, Malfoy throws open the door to compartment H-7 and steps inside.

Hanging back out in the hallway, Harry wonders what will happen if he just takes off. He’s done his job. Malfoy can probably figure this out alone; he’s been making good progress, and apparently he can trigger memories on his own now.

It’s not running away, he thinks, it’s more like a strategic departure.

But Harry stands there and waits, fingers drumming a staccato rhythm on his leg. Eventually, Malfoy storms back out—the younger one—flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. His face is thunderous. They pass by, Harry catching the beginning of a long stream of insults.

Harry waits another minute. The first years are long gone, but Malfoy still hasn’t come out of the compartment. What’s he doing in there? Pretending to strangle the other Harry?

If another minute goes by, Harry tells himself he’ll go in. It turns out to be unnecessary, as Malfoy steps through the door almost immediately afterwards.

Maybe he should have run.

“Potter,” Malfoy says, voice deliberately conversational, “did you not think it fit to tell me that the reason we’re not friends is because you chose a Weasley over me? A _Weasley_. You were the first person to ever tell me I wasn’t good enough, and not only was I not good enough, but a _Weasley_ was better. Not to mention that you made a fool of me in front of Crabbe and Goyle.”

Harry splutters. “I chose Ron over you?”

Malfoy just stands here, arms crossed. His mouth is a thin line.

“It wasn’t even a choice! Ron sat with me and talked to me like I was a person. Admit it: you only came in because of who I am.”

“That’s how it works, Potter,” Malfoy says, finally getting angry. “Or have you not been paying attention?”

“Well, that’s how it works for me! I liked Ron. He made me feel like I fit in.” At least Harry has the tact not to add ‘unlike you.’ “He was nice to me, Malfoy. All you ever did was insult everything about me—my family, my friends, my wardrobe. So, yeah, I ‘chose’ Ron.”

Malfoy scowls. Their earlier camaraderie has vanished. “And what does your best friend have to say about this?” He gestures between them. “I’ll bet he was just jumping for joy when you told him you planned on helping me.”

“Er—” Harry comes up short. For a second he can see the understanding—if not a little saddened—look on Ron’s face at the train station. _This is my last chance to have Christmas here, at my first home._ Ron will feel so betrayed when he finds out the truth, that Harry lied straight to his face. That is, if he hasn’t found out already.

“I didn’t tell him.”

“What?”

“I didn’t tell him,” Harry repeats, annoyed. “Neville thought it was a bad idea. I… agreed. He still doesn’t like you much.” Understatement of the year. “He wouldn’t have understood, and I had to do this.”

Malfoy leans back against the wall of the corridor. The look of anger falls from his face, only to be replaced by confusion. It’s almost like he forgets Harry’s there. He tilts his head back far enough for the crown of his head to contact the wall. Eyes fluttering closed, he lets out a long breath.

“Why? Why are you doing this?” Malfoy’s voice is a lost, broken thing. “You clearly hated me. I presume I felt the same. Then I get myself into this mess and you just decide to help me. Why, Potter?” He steps away from the wall. For a second, Harry thinks Malfoy’s going to shove him, but he only demands, “Why? Answer me, Potter!”

“I don’t know,” Harry says. “I don’t know.” It had felt so _necessary_. He can't explain why.

“I was so certain that you were just doing this for blackmail, or to make a fool of me so you could laugh with your friends—Weasley, I suppose. But now?” Malfoy shakes his head. He looks at Harry. “You’re a shitty liar. But you weren’t lying then. You really are here just to help, aren’t you?”

“I _told_ you I was. Malfoy, the next seven years are… Well, they’re not good. You and I go through a lot of things, some of them together, most of them not. But along the way I stopped hating you. I stopped even _disliking_ you. I don’t know if we could have ever been friends here, but a lot of things have changed since then. I wanted to help you. And—if you want—” Harry’s throat goes suddenly dry. He swallows, drawing in a shaky breath. “If you want, I’d like us to be friends now.”

Slowly, he drags his eyes up from where they’d fallen. Malfoy’s looking at him, although looking isn’t quite the right word. Malfoy’s eyes are like fire, burning deep into Harry’s own. They’re the only things real in this world of dreamdust.

In truth, he’d meant to say something else. Malfoy still drives him crazy more often than not. It probably won’t work, him and Malfoy. It will never be easy like him and Ron, never be understanding like him and Hermione, never be supportive like him and Neville, or fun like him and Ginny, never—

Not moving his eyes from Harry’s, Malfoy holds a hand out. Harry hardly breathes as he reaches out and takes it, Malfoy’s grip firm and warm, so different than when Harry'd taken his hand in the infirmary.

Harry decides he doesn’t care what him and Malfoy aren’t.

He wants to find out what they can be.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

First year is, as expected, relatively quiet. Harry doesn’t remember many details of it either, if he’s honest, besides his constant wonder at everything. After the Remembrall incident with Neville (“ _That’s_ Neville? That bumbling child is the reason I’m in this mess?”), the rest of first year goes by quickly.

Still, Harry finds himself getting nervous. It was the seventeenth when he and Neville cast the spell, and they’ve been at this for, what, three days already? More? Time passes strangely here. Without the need for sleep, the days feel exceptionally long. It’s as though they’ve been in here an eternity already; Harry can’t imagine how the month Malfoy was in here alone felt. Then he’ll get caught in an interesting memory, and he’ll realise an hour or more has passed.

He can’t trust his own inner clock, not that it was ever completely accurate to begin with. It’s disorienting.

The winter holidays roll around without fanfare: between one memory and the next, the grounds are covered with snow and the window panes are adorned with frost. In the Slytherin dungeons, huge and elegant yet uncomfortably austere, the temperature plummets. Outside the below-ground windows, the water of the lake turns dark. It’s no wonder the Slytherins were always so cold, Harry thinks, living in such a place.

Harry wonders if, in the outside world, Christmas has come and gone. If Neville’s sent out Harry’s presents and opened his own. If the other eighth years have returned and found their already war-reduced numbers down one more.

Luckily, they’re moving past Christmas quickly, barrelling towards the end of the year. Malfoy goes to classes. Malfoy plays games with Pansy. Malfoy makes fun of the other students with Crabbe and Goyle. In between skipping through important memories, Draco needs to take breaks, allowing Harry glimpses into the ordinary, boring minutiae of his life.

Which are practically all first year is. While Harry was battling Voldemort in Quirrell's body, Malfoy was eating dinner. The entire affair was nothing more than a footnote in Malfoy’s life notable only because—

“I can’t believe the indignity of it!” Malfoy is still raging an hour later. “How would you feel! Tell me!” He doesn’t give Harry a chance to respond. “Let’s just decorate the Great Hall in green and silver. Slytherin wins! Wait a second, I’m just going to hand out just enough _fucking_ points so Gryffindor wins because I hate Slytherin. The blatant _favouritism_ —”

“Dumbledore didn’t hate Slytherin.”

“Well, he certainly liked Gryffindor more.”

Draco’s busy not doing anything. It’s summer break, and his younger self is reading a book. They’re outside underneath a tree, grass between Harry’s fingers and warm sunlight kissing his face.

He’s going to enjoy this quiet moment. Things will be chaotic soon enough.

Harry pictures a cold, desolate tower and shivers. He remembers how helpless he’d felt, watching Malfoy hold the headmaster at wand point. On one hand, he wants to get out of here as quickly as they can. On the other, he’s in no rush to relive the highlights of the war, even through another set of eyes.

It doesn’t matter what he wants, though: this is clearly going to take a while.

They make it into second year, and the petrifications begin. Younger Malfoy is decidedly unsympathetic. Older Malfoy is slightly more concerned, mostly about how Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place in the world.

In December, Malfoy and Harry have their duel at the duelling club.

“Why in the world would I use _Serpensortia_?” Malfoy groans. “I was so stupid. I’ll just throw a snake at him. Potter can survive the killing curse, but a snake might do the trick.”

Harry laughs. “Well, it did damage to my reputation, I suppose. Everyone thought I was the Heir for months.”

That triggers a new memory some time in January, which actually disappoints Harry somewhat. He’d been looking forward to the memory with him and Ron polyjuiced as Crabbe and Goyle.

(“Why were you, Crabbe, and Goyle even here over the break?”

“Father and Mother went to France. Crabbe and Goyle stayed because I told them to.”)

He’s mostly just amazed at how normal Malfoy’s life is. While students were lying petrified in the hospital wing, Malfoy was playing Gobstones. It makes Harry just a little jealous; he’d hardly had time to be a normal student. Every year involved more trying to save his friends, save the castle, or stop Voldemort than the last.

The only thing Draco has to worry about is Quidditch. As it turned out, Draco had tried out for seeker. Not that his father hadn’t bribed the team—he had—but Malfoy was on the team mostly fair. He was better in practises than during matches, an endless source of frustration for the Slytherin team.

In the background, Harry kills the basilisk, destroys a horcrux, and faces down Voldemort again. Malfoy has a particularly bad hair day. It’s not exactly what Harry would call fair.

Third year is a bit more involved than the last. There is, of course, the whole Buckbeak incident, which causes an argument between Harry and Draco that lasts until Harry falls from his broom in September.

“Should have tried catching the snitch with your mouth again on the way down,” Malfoy says in lieu of an apology.

“Should try looking at the snitch instead of me,” Harry retorts.

They're alright.

It’s in January that the memories begin to slow. They’re in the Slytherin dorm rooms, the walls coloured deep green by the light coming through the lake water. It is beautiful in a way, although Harry wonders how they don’t have nightmares of drowning.

He must have spoken out loud, because Draco answers, “Most of us do. You get used to it after a while.”

The door bangs open. Malfoy and his two cronies come in, dragging a mess of black fabric behind them. It catches on something every two feet, and Malfoy yells at them after it rips loudly.

Eventually they make in all the way in, dumping it in a heap in the middle of the floor.

“Now what?” Goyle says.

Malfoy deflates minimally. “Well, we just need to—we need to sew it.”

They both look at him for instruction.

“What? Do I look like I know how to sew? I thought I could get the elves to do it. There must be some sort of charm.” Malfoy walks off to his trunk, pulling out a textbook and flipping through it while Crabbe and Goyle shift restlessly.

With a start, Harry realises what this is. That stupid prank Malfoy had tried to pull on him, dressing up like a dementor during the Quidditch match in February. He’d always wondered where Malfoy had gotten those costumes. Making them himself would have been the last guess on his list.

And by hand no less, considering that Malfoy fails to find a charm. Crabbe goes off to play Gobstones with Nott, leaving Goyle and Malfoy to sew the costumes by hand.

“It took ages,” Draco says, the memory fading away between one exclamation of pain and the next; Malfoy wasn’t very accurate with a needle. “And it didn’t even work, did it?”

“No,” Harry says, almost apologetically. He isn't going to feel bad about hitting Malfoy with the Patronus Charm, and he certainly isn't going to feel bad about the hours of detention Professor McGonagall punished Malfoy with, namely cleaning various classrooms.

Those are most of his memories for the next couple months. It’s a bit terribly boring, but Draco manages to make a game out of guessing how many times Goyle will drop something, making a bigger mess, and what time Pansy is going to show up to help under the guise of extreme boredom.

Draco is, of course, cheating.

“They’re my _memories_ , Potter. It’s not cheating.”

It’s cheating.

The Slytherins have their final detention in early May, a week or so after Hermione had slapped Malfoy. With a sound like rustling pages, Harry and Draco find themselves in the Hogwarts library. It’s quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

It’s not Malfoy they see first, but Gregory Goyle. Even in third year, he was exceptionally large. The chairs of the library appear doll-sized with him in them, and the quill between his fingers is bent almost in two with the pressure he’s exerting on it. He’s scratching away on a parchment, his other hand supporting his head. Seeing Goyle in the library is a bit like seeing a grindylow in a soup tureen—although it could probably be there, it definitely shouldn’t.

Harry’s hit with a sudden bout of irritation mingled with concern, and it takes a second to figure out that it’s not his, but Malfoy’s; younger Malfoy is to his left, their shoulders having intersected for a moment.

“What are you doing?” Malfoy says. “I was looking for you all over. Crabbe told me you were here. I didn’t think you even knew where the library was.”

After a second, Goyle looks up. He blinks tiredly. “Oh. Hullo, Malfoy.”

“Yes, yes, _hello_. I asked what you were doing.”

“Studying.”

Malfoy looks as shocked as Harry feels. Goyle studying? He knew Goyle was passing his classes—he wouldn’t have been in the same classes as Harry if he weren’t—but Harry had always figured that it was a mix of bribery and pureblood manoeuvering.

“Since when do you study? Just get your father to make a few donations. Flitwick needs new blackboards.”

Harry’d thought so.

“I can’t!” Goyle exclaims. The quill in his hand finally snaps, splattering ink all over the parchment he’d been writing on. Swearing, Goyle attempts to blot up the ink, but it only smears more.

Sighing, Malfoy steps forward and waves Goyle off. He siphons the ink away with a spell, then murmurs a _Reparo_ over the quill, although it remains a little lopsided. Goyle sits back down in his seat.

Malfoy turns away for a second—both of them do. Harry doesn’t understand why at first, until Goyle sniffles once and drags the back of his hand across his eyes. A tear streaks out anyway, tracing a long, glistening path along his cheek. Another swipe of the hand banishes it. Goyle straightens his parchment out, gathering himself together. A few seconds and he’s Goyle again, hard-faced, brutish, the only sign of his inner misery the faint redness of his eyes.

“Thanks,” he says quietly.

Malfoy turns back to him, waving off his gratitude. He draws up a seat and sits down across from Goyle.

“My father’s upset with me,” Goyle says. “My grades have been down all year, thanks to those detentions we had to do.” Malfoy looks faintly guilty at this admission. “He already had to ‘donate’ last year, lots just so I could pass. I’m doing even worse this year. I just—I don’t _understand_. I don’t get any of it. If I fail, he’ll _Crucio_ me again.”

Harry draws in a sharp breath. Goyle’s father used _Crucio_ on him as punishment? He turns to Draco, a bitter taste in his mouth. “Did—”

“My father do the same to me?” Draco says, reading his mind. “No. Well, not yet at least. Don’t look at me like that, Potter, I was joking. Mostly. It’s common enough practise anyway.”

“To _Crucio_ your own child?” Harry says angrily.

“Or Stinging Hex, something along those lines. You know what they say, fear and love get the same job done.” Draco shrugs one shoulder, feigning indifference. He won’t meet Harry’s eyes.

“I don’t want to know who says that,” Harry says. “Merlin, Malfoy. I’m sorry. The Dursleys never hit me at least.”

He never thought he’d see the day when he was calling the Dursleys better guardians that anyone else. Not that they weren’t bad, just, Harry supposes, different shades of grey. If the Dursleys hadn’t been Muggles, they would have made fantastic Death Eaters.

At the table, Malfoy pulls a book from the teetering stack next to Goyle and flips it open. “The Cheering Charm. Invented in the late 1400s by Felix Summerbee after he did something horribly boring, most likely. Merlin, Goyle, you’ll never learn anything from this. I’d rather read that utter swill the _Prophet_ writes about Potter—Boy-Who-Lived buys a cauldron, Saviour of the Wizarding World seen looking at robes!”

Beside Harry, Draco muffles a bit of laughter into his shirt.

Malfoy snaps the book shut. “Come on, try to cast it. Remember the wand movement? It was that day Pansy kept trying to get a paper plane to hit Patil in the head. Well, come on, I haven’t all day.”

“Malfoy—” Goyle blinks slowly, eyes shining again.

“Less of that and more of the Cheering Charm, please and thank you.”

He doesn’t try to say thank you again, but Goyle’s face splits into a smile, a real one. Harry can only see the profile of Malfoy’s face, but it’s enough to see the beginnings of a smile on his face too.

With a noise like crumpling paper, the memory folds into a new one.

They’re in a wide-open space, nothing but desks and bright light, a sea of bowed heads and the frantic scratching of a hundred quills. Exams. In the front of the room, a large hourglass drains the last of its contents, and a clarion noise like a bell rings out. Half of the students groan. All rise as one and shuffle, exhausted, towards the exit, where Harry stands next to Draco. Through the crowd, he catches sight of a shock of pale hair—Malfoy. He’s making a face at someone, and Harry follows it to his younger self, who’s making a face right back.

They’re such kids. He’d forgotten—well, not forgotten, not exactly, but his memories had dulled, been replaced—that it used to be so simple between him and Malfoy. Remembralls arcing through the sky, insults in the hallways, and making faces at each other at the end of another school year.

Somehow it feels like this moment never ended, like Harry’d bottled it up and he’s been living it ever since, like the war was just a fever dream and he’s thirteen again, sticking his tongue out at Malfoy across the Great Hall. The light from the sun is warm and the voices of all the students break over his skin like the gentle lapping of waves.

They pour past Harry and Draco, out the doors and outside into the early June day to lay on the grass by the lake, or underneath the dappled shade of the occasional tree. It’s perfect, this moment.

Draco must feel it too, because when Harry looks over at him he sticks his tongue out. Harry grins.

A new memory sprawls over the old one like a new layer of paint on a canvas.

“Malfoy! Malfoy!” Gregory Goyle holds up a sheet of paper, exultant. “I passed! I actually _passed_. Flitwick looked at me and said—he said he was _proud_. No one’s ever said they were _proud_ of me before. Malfoy… _Thank you_.”

The memory scatters to the wind like dandelion seeds.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

The sky threatens rain. Harry looks backwards, as though the memory might still be there, but the only thing he sees is a tall iron gate and scraggly trees reaching towards the gunmetal sky.

“When…?” he says, looking around aimlessly. Even with the gentle transition, he feels like something’s been ripped away. He feels lost.

Draco’s beside him again. His eyes are grey, too, but so much lighter than the sky. “A month later, give or take a week. It’s—there’s something important I’ve forgotten.” A distressed look passes over his face, and the entire scene warbles violently, like the surface of a lake after a stone had been chucked in it.

With a groan, Draco drops to his knees, and the scene solidifies back to the driveway, the gate, and the uncaring sky. Harry bends down beside him, concerned, but Draco only waves him off.

“Too much,” he murmurs. “Just give me a moment.”

There’s a bitter wind. Though blunted by time, it’s enough to make Harry shiver. He wishes suddenly for clothes besides his t-shirt, something warm to wrap himself in, but everything here collapses when touched, everything but him and Draco. He reaches out, unthinking, and rests a hand on Draco’s arm. He’s warm, and—for once—he doesn’t push Harry away.

After a moment, Harry withdraws, not sure which of them he was trying to comfort.

He wants that memory back, the joy of success, the way the shared experience of the exams brought everyone together, the bittersweet taste of something drawing to a close. But it’s gone. There’s nothing to do but move forward.

They rise at last, wandering down the path. Draco’s quiet, so Harry tries to fill the silence with meaningless chatter. At last he gives up on that too, and they find themselves at the foot of the Manor. Today it’s less Draco’s childhood home and more the building Harry sees sometimes in his nightmares, but Draco’s going up the steps and Harry has no choice but to follow.

Draco heads through the house as though drawn by a magnet. It’s almost as much of a maze to Harry as the one outside, and today they’re going someplace Harry’s never been before, down a long, dark-panelled hallway. A doorway at the end is ajar, light spilling out. It is, however, the raised voices coming from it that mark it as their destination.

“—not a _child!_ ”

“I am not discussing this with you, Draco.”

They hang outside the door, listening.

“This involves me too. I live here! I’m not an idiot! I deserve to know—”

“You are a child, Draco, no matter what you seem to think. You haven’t yet earned the right to be involved. All you need to know is that I am handling it.”

“Father, I can help. I want to help. _Please_.”

“No,” Lucius snaps at last. “I am doing this to protect you. I don’t want to hear another word from you on this subject.”

“Father—”

“ _Go_.”

The sound of angry footsteps precedes the door’s violent opening. Malfoy storms out, furious and, Harry thinks, slightly humiliated. So much pride, so easily wounded, especially by the one person he wanted to impress the most.

“By the time you were fourteen, you’d killed a basilisk, one of our teachers, and fought off more dementors than there are in Azkaban.” Draco laughs humourlessly. “My own father wouldn’t tell me a single thing, not even about the people that kept coming into my own house.”

“Malfoy—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Draco’s back is to Harry. He’s facing the wall, one finger tracing the pattern of the wallpaper. “Give me a memory. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Your head—”

Draco turns just enough so that Harry can see his face. His eyes are closed tightly, the light from the open door turning his lashes almost white. “Let’s get out of here.”

Harry nods, even though Draco can’t see him. He wants to say something, tell Draco he can sympathise—the Order ( _Dumbledore_ ) had kept so many things from him for so long—but he knows all it will do is push Draco away.

Right now, all that matters is getting out of here.

“In August, you went to the Quidditch World Cup. A riot broke out. There were Death Eaters, and one of them cast _Morsmordre_.”

Harry can still picture the Dark Mark hanging in the sky, that cruel mockery of an aurora, the way it had chilled his blood. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, it is there.

The other Malfoy stands looking at it, pale face faintly awash with green, eyes sparkling with the light of a hundred fires. Emotions war on his face, amazement mainly, although there’s a hint of fear there too.

“I remember feeling powerful. Important. I wanted—I wanted to be out there, terrorizing Muggleborns like my father. I did. But looking at it now, I feel sick. And I don’t know _why_.” Draco turns away from his younger self, unable to stomach the reverent look on his own face. “I know that I need to get out of here, _we_ need to get out of here, but the closer we get to the ending, the worse I feel.

“I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to know what happens to make me change so much. It’s like—it’s like I don’t even know who I _am_.”

“You’re still you,” Harry says. He looks out over the campgrounds, the vague shapes running back and forth, attempting to extinguish the fires still burning here and there. He can hear the faraway pops of people Apparating.

“You’re still you, Malfoy. We just… grew up. We had to.”

“Still me,” Draco scoffs. “You didn’t even like me.”

In the sky, the Dark Mark is dissipating. The snake goes first, flakes of green breaking off and falling like shooting stars.

“I like you now,” Harry says.

 

⨯⨯⨯

 

Fourth year is a chaotic jumble of memories. They crowd in one after the other, vying for their time in the spotlight as Harry and Draco push onwards.

Draco being transfigured into a ferret is a lot less entertaining after he declares that he was ‘bloody terrified and couldn’t even remember my own name.’

Harry gets chosen as a Triwizard champion, and Malfoy spends all night on the floor of the common room with Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle making the ‘Potter Stinks’ badges. They go quite a bit better than the dementor costume, mainly due to the fact that Pansy does most of the work and Crabbe and Goyle do none of it.

In December, Malfoy goes to the ball with Pansy. They dance around a few times, then get in a minor argument because Malfoy’s so busy watching Hermione dance with Viktor Krum that he almost drops her during a spin.

He makes it up to her with the shameless use of the Orchideous Charm and a cup of punch. Pansy’s affections are easily repaired.

(“I never would have thought it of you, Malfoy,” Harry says, mostly teasing, somewhat surprised. Hermione _had_ looked very pretty that night, he remembers, in that dress.

“What?” Draco says sharply.

“That you were looking at Hermione. Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

“Granger, right.” Draco looks oddly relieved. Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “You better not. I have a reputation to uphold.”)

Malfoy watches the second task with the rest of the students. He only tries to push Neville into the lake once. Afterwards, he follows Krum around, trying to congratulate him, but gives up before he can.

As they get closer and closer to June, Harry gets more and more anxious. He can almost feel the memory looming, electricity crackling down the line towards them. Time only seems to fly faster the closer they get, and before Harry knows it, he and Draco are sitting in the stands, waiting with the rest of the students for the results.

“I’ll bet Krum wins,” Malfoy says, “and Potter gets carted off to the infirmary.”

“It’s Potter,” Pansy says haughtily. “He’ll probably win and come out riding a dragon, holding the trophy.”

“I think you’d need both hands to ride a dragon,” Goyle grunts. He’s eating candied something-or-other, hands coated red from where it’s melted. The skin around his mouth is stained the same colour, almost as if he’s wearing lipstick.

Malfoy’s pretending not to notice. He opens his mouth to speak again when the world rips open, depositing Harry before them.

“Is that—” both Malfoys say as one, the real Draco turning pale.

“Merlin, Potter, I’m sorry,” Draco says. Harry can’t bear to watch, doesn’t need to anyway. He could be hit with a hundred _Obliviates_ and he doesn’t think he’d forget that day, the heavy weight of Cedric in his arms. He swallows back bile. There’s a hand on his back, just resting there, and Harry is grateful. Thankfully, the memory is over quickly. Harry doesn’t pay much attention to what comes afterward, goes through Draco’s memories like a ghost. He feels shaky. It’s stupid, he thinks, to be so affected. It was so long ago now, and he’s been through so much more. So much worse.

Students are leaving Hogwarts. It’s a much later departure than normal, the star-studded sky a deep indigo above them.

“There’s something I want to show you,” Draco says, and turns back into the castle. Harry follows at a distance, looking at everything and wondering how even the memory feels so different when nothing much has really changed.

Hogwarts is like Malfoy Manor; Draco can go where he pleases in it without the memory collapsing. Draco saw Hogwarts as his home, too, Harry thinks. _Just like me._ He knew its hallways, its rooms, the secret places behind tapestries.

It’s to one of these secret places that Draco takes him now. Up high in one of the towers, behind a ‘solid’ section of wall.

“If you turn sideways just right,” Draco says, sliding straight through the stone. “It’s just an illusion. I fell through one day by accident.”

The passageway is so narrow that Harry has to suck in a breath just to make it through. Even though he’s not claustrophobic, he’s relieved when he makes it out the other side. As he takes in the sight, he releases a soft sound of wonder.

Draco smiles at him, really smiles, before turning back to the balcony. The cool night air washes over them, carrying with it the distant scent of flowers. They’re looking out over the Great Lake. The water below is still and tranquil. The reflection of the moon and stars on its surface are so perfect that they look as though they’ve fallen there, like they’re resting just an inch below the surface like thousands of glowing fish. On the far side of the lake are the first years’ boats. Tiny pinpricks of orange—the lanterns—mark each one.

It’s beautiful.

“This is my favourite place in the whole school,” Draco says softly. The place feels so holy that Harry doesn’t think it’s possible to talk normally. “I’ve never shown it to anyone else. Not even Pansy. I only ever came here when I really needed to. It’s pretty in the daytime, too, but at night, it’s like—”

“Magic,” Harry breathes. It’s the only word for it.

“Yeah. Magic.”

“Thank you, Draco,” Harry says. He’s rewarded with another of those soft smiles. They sit, their backs against the wall, and watch the lantern light fade away.

After a period of time—maybe minutes, maybe even an hour—Draco starts, haltingly, “I feel like I’m going to come here a lot over the next few years. Potter—I don’t think I like where this story is going.” He rubs the centre of his chest with his right hand. Harry's come to recognise it as a habit, something he does when he's distressed.

Harry wants to tell Malfoy that their story has a happy ending. But he’s not sure how happy it was for Draco, just that it ended.

Before Harry gets a chance to respond, the entire scene ripples like water and slips away. The moment is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took a lot longer to write than i wanted it to. as always, all errors are my own. i plan on revising this chapter sometime in the future, probably after this story's done and after the new year. i have a couple fics planned out after this one that i want to write first. 
> 
> happy thanksgiving to everyone else in the us!

**Author's Note:**

> there are two more chapters after this one, and then maybe a short third. if the next isn't up in another week or so, then please (gently) yell at me.


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